We reached our new rental in Brittany on Sunday. It’s even better than we had hoped. The house looked nice online; it was a very pleasant surprise to find the rooms were larger than they looked in the pictures (when does that ever happen?). J was delighted to find an extremely well-equipped kitchen. (Oddly, it had no large knives, so we’ve now bought one.) M was happy to find that there are lots of plates and silverware, so dishes don’t have to be washed every day and the dishwasher can be used instead.
We had some trouble finding the place, which we had been kind of expecting. There’s no street address – just the name of the hamlet the house is in, Lézargol. The driving instructions (in French) included things like “at the goose foot, keep right.” Hunh? We got to within a stone’s throw, but eventually had to call the owner (who was waiting at the house) for help.
Obviously we aren’t the only ones with this issue, as signs like this one are common in this area:
And when J made the first amazon.fr order, there was a space for special instructions for the delivery person on how to find the house.
The owner lives an hour away but her parents live next door. Some fabulous organic vegetables grown by her mother, a bottle of local hard cider, a big vase of flowers, and a traditional dessert, far breton, made by her mother, were waiting for us when we arrived. What a great welcome! I’m still dreaming about the melon they gave us… the best I’ve ever had.
Her mother obviously has a very green thumb – the house is surrounded by beautiful flower gardens. It’s delightful to sit outside on the (very comfortable) lounges and hear the bees buzzing in the flowers. There’s almost always a breeze, as we’re only about 500m from the coast.
Boy, it’s gorgeous here. We keep saying that, or something similar, as we drive around and go for walks.
There are fantastic sandy beaches, at least when the tide’s out. The water’s a little chilly as the tide ebbs, but as it comes in and hits the sun-warmed sand, it’s delightfully warm.
There’s definitely no problem finding a place to lay out a towel! If only there weren’t an army of flies advancing upwind across the sand, it would be perfect. Well, for M it is perfect, because the flies are only stalking J. Apparently they got the memo from the mosquitoes back home…
On Wednesday we gave the kitchen it’s first big test run. At the open-air market in Crozon, an organic farm was selling fabulous-looking produce. The plan for dinner quickly changed from something relatively simple to guvetch, a Balkan stew. Eggplant, zucchini, string beans, peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil – we got just about everything we needed there. Lamb and potatoes were all we needed to buy elsewhere. It was delicious! The organic strawberries, also from the same farm, were a fantastic finish to the meal.
Now it’s dinner time!
Our French Adventure 